Gold Is Finally Breaking Out!!??

Today (9/8/09), Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX), the world biggest gold producer, announced that it plans to eliminate all of its gold hedges and raise $3 billion in a share offering to help pay for the move, as gold breached $1,000 mark. (AP News link is here.)

Barrick Gold will join Newmont Mining in having their gold positions totally unhedged. They clearly see a plenty of upside and little downside in gold, going forward.

Gold went up to $1007 today, only to reverse back to where it started the day at $995, making the daily candlestick "gravestone doji", a reversal signal. However, I'm not too worried about short-term reversal, because I continue to like what I see longer term. Gold has to correct over 25% from here to get to my cost basis (I have DGP, double-long gold ETN), and like Barrick Gold's CEO I just don't see it happening.

This is Gold continuous contract, 3-year weekly chart. I tend to see the huge reverse head and shoulders formation that has taken 18 months to form. On shorter time horizon (since March this year), I see "ascending triangle pattern". Both patterns share the same neckline. Short-term, a break from the "ascending triangle" would be around $1160 (widest distance in the pattern plus neckline). Longer-term, a break from the "head and shoulders" would be $1320 (head height plus neckline).

However, gold doesn't necessarily move based on technicals. China is calling back its physical gold holdings from London to store them in a newly constructed vault in Hong Kong. It recently allowed its citizens to own and trade physical gold, and is planning gold ETF based on their gold holdings. I suspect gold's huge jump last week was at least partly in response to the news from China. Gold has a potential to break even further up, beyond technicals.